Microliteraturehttp://www.microliterature.org
Journal of MicroliteratureSun, 29 Mar 2015 05:04:59 +0000en-UShourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=4.1.1Microliteraturehttps://feedburner.google.comThree Sides to Everything by Ray Carnshttp://www.microliterature.org/three-sides-everything-ray-carns
http://www.microliterature.org/three-sides-everything-ray-carns#commentsSun, 29 Mar 2015 05:04:59 +0000http://www.microliterature.org/?p=951RON’S SIDE Ron knew what was coming. He knew that look, that walk, the way Leila’s legs moved, arms swung, hair swished from side-to-side. There was nowhere to go to escape the anger that hurtled toward him. “Where do you get off treating me like that? Humiliating me in front of my friends?” she said as she stopped inches from him. Ron backed against the wall, out of her intimidation zone. “I didn’t mean anything by it. Honest.” He threw his hands up, palm out. “Don’t give me that. You promised you wouldn’t tell that story to anyone.” Ron dropped […]

Ron knew what was coming. He knew that look, that walk, the way Leila’s legs moved, arms swung, hair swished from side-to-side. There was nowhere to go to escape the anger that hurtled toward him.

“Where do you get off treating me like that? Humiliating me in front of my friends?” she said as she stopped inches from him.

Ron backed against the wall, out of her intimidation zone. “I didn’t mean anything by it. Honest.” He threw his hands up, palm out.

“Don’t give me that. You promised you wouldn’t tell that story to anyone.”

Ron dropped his hands. “It slipped out. I had too much to drink.”

“Excuses. That’s all you every have. And it’s always because you drink. I’m tired of it. All you do is drink and do stupid things and say you’re sorry.” Leila glared at Ron. “No more. We’re through. Get some help. ”

“I don’t need help. You do,” he said. “You do. You’re the one that needs help. You do. Always so concerned about your image. Well you’re no saint. You hear that? No saint. You’re no saint. No Saint Leila.”

Ron pointed his finger at her. “Saint Leila La-de-da.” He leaned back and slid down the wall until he rested on his heels. “Saint Leila La-de-da and Sis-boom-ba.”

Ron leaned to the left, started to fall, caught himself, then threw-up.

“Get some help, Ron.” Leila turned and walked away.

LEILA’S SIDE

Leila walked toward Ron. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, part shuffle, part sway. She stopped in front of him.

“I didn’t appreciate the way you spoke about me in there,” she said.

Leila leaned her head toward him. She smelled the twelve shots of tequila on his breath. Ron staggered backward and came to rest against the wall.

“I didn’t say nothing.” He threw his hands up, palm out.

“You told that story about us on the beach and you made it sound like it was a joke. I thought that night meant something.”

“I had too much to drink. It just came out.”

“You shouldn’t have.”

Ron dropped his hands. “The guys made a bet I couldn’t outdo Brandon on shots. I had too much to drink. It just came out.”

“That’s just an excuse.”

“It’s not an excuse.”

“You need to stop drinking so much. It’s not good for you.” Leila leaned forward and looked into his eyes. “Let me help you back inside.”

“I don’t need help. You need help. You can’t take a joke. Always concerned about you. Who do you think you are? Some kind of saint? Saint Leila? Lei-la-de-da-de-da.”

Ron pointed his finger at her as he slid down the wall until he rested on his heels. “Lei-la-de-da-boom-ba.”

Ron leaned to the left, started to fall, caught himself, then threw-up.

“I’ll get some help, Ron.” Leila turned and walked away.

REALITY’S SIDE

Leila stepped outside. Ron stood in the shadows of the yard at the corner of the house. Leila walked toward him. A moth flew near her face. She swatted it away, caught the ends of her hair between her fingers, and flipped the curls over her shoulder.

Ron watched her approach, shifted his weight from one foot to the other, part shuffle, part sway. Leila stopped in front of him.

She leaned her head forward to see his face in the dark. She smelled the twelve shots of tequila on his breath.

Ron staggered backward and bumped against the wall.

“I didn’t appreciate being humiliated,” she said.

He threw his hands up, palm out. “I didn’t mean it.”

“You said you wouldn’t tell anyone. I thought you said that night was special.”

“I was doing shots with Brandon. It just came out. We had a bet.”

“That’s no excuse. You drank too much. You know how you get when you drink.” Leila reached out to him. “You don’t look good. Let me help.”

He slid down the wall and came to rest on his heels. “Boom.” He looked up at Leila for a second. “La-la-de-da-de-da-da-da.”

Ron leaned to the left, started to fall, caught himself, then threw-up.

“I’ll get some help, Ron.” Leila turned and walked away.

Ray Carns lives in Phoenix, Arizona, where he divides his time between writing, photography and film making. His work has been published in the Journal of Microliterature, Bourbon Penn, this—a literary webzine, and Rose and Thorn Journal.

]]>http://www.microliterature.org/three-sides-everything-ray-carns/feed0Another Pageful of Words by B. E. Smithhttp://www.microliterature.org/another-pageful-words-b-e-smith
http://www.microliterature.org/another-pageful-words-b-e-smith#commentsSun, 22 Mar 2015 05:03:04 +0000http://www.microliterature.org/?p=947Thinking of Ben Franklin, the young printer smiles walking into work late again. Nodding to himself in bemused assurance, he considers the tenure of Mark Twain; he ponders the constant flux of moveable type during the many editions of Leaves of Grass. The risk had been worth the sleepless night and the foreman’s menacing glower. Workmates sneer at him because they have witnessed such belated and disheveled appearances at work before. Yet the young printer’s smile broadens while comparing last night to a friend back in high school. His friend Dan had raced from the football field after practice as […]

]]>Thinking of Ben Franklin, the young printer smiles walking into work late again. Nodding to himself in bemused assurance, he considers the tenure of Mark Twain; he ponders the constant flux of moveable type during the many editions of Leaves of Grass. The risk had been worth the sleepless night and the foreman’s menacing glower. Workmates sneer at him because they have witnessed such belated and disheveled appearances at work before. Yet the young printer’s smile broadens while comparing last night to a friend back in high school.

His friend Dan had raced from the football field after practice as if he were trying to beat everyone back to the locker room. While teammates showered, Dan had splashed on cologne and quickly jumped into his street clothes. Before others could towel off, he had slammed shut the car door in the parking lot and set the tires squealing and smoking en route to his girlfriend’s house. Teammates and townspeople alike all knew where he was and what he was doing. Try to call Dan about practice tomorrow or the game on Friday, though, and you didn’t exist. Nothing could distract him from his attention to his girlfriend. She was his muse, the meaning in his life.

Home from work as fast as he could drive, the young printer had set straight to writing, scrambling in a panic to put something on paper. He couldn’t be bothered with showering or cooking a proper meal. He had needed to write as much as he could before time ran out and work would haul him back to prison, handcuffed from writing and chained to the printing presses.

Angered by so many days after work he could write for only an hour or two, he had written past sundown and the ten thirty bedtime he knew he should meet if he wanted to focus at work the next morning. If he had taken a break from writing, it was to switch off the bedside alarm to prevent it from distracting him at five thirty.

Possessed, he had written page after page, making corrections and revisions instead of the dreaming about adjustments on printing presses that usually kept him from restful sleep at that time in the morning. He had written past the moments he would think he had awakened minutes before the alarm would sound, past the longings for just another half hour of sleep—his mind had pressed a Snooze button so he might continue writing sentences.

The young printer’s routine would have had him put away the dishes that had dried in the rack overnight, but he hadn’t washed them, had left them piled in the sink. As the time to leave for work had grown closer, he had written in a frenzy to get as much down as he could. He had forfeited a shower for the sake of a few more sentences. In lieu of breakfast, he had written his last paragraph before he had dashed out the door several phrases late for work.

Co-workers turn at the sight and sour smell of him. The young printer has heard rumors that he is a drunk coming in hungover. He sees in the faces of his workmates an indignant leer that wants him fired. Doubtless, they see his dark bush of ratty hair, his puffy, ruddy face and blood-shot eyes as evidence of an unkempt and degenerate life. Surely, he wears his shirts backwards or inside-out, his fly unzipped, and his shoes untied. Yet he walks past them toward his station brimming with self-satisfaction. And if he looks like he feels, then he knows the florescent lights in the printing warehouse are shining down on him, catching the clumped facets in his greasy hair at odd angles, and reflecting an angelic iridescence of unfounded superiority.

B. E. Smith is a freelance writer from Utah. In addition to essay and article publications, his stories and poems have appeared in anthologies and magazines such as Gutter Eloquence, Zygote in My Coffee, The Legendary, Static Movement, the delinquent, and in the current issue of The Binnacle. He lives in Salt Lake City and is writing a memoir.

]]>http://www.microliterature.org/another-pageful-words-b-e-smith/feed0Living by Daniel Wilmothhttp://www.microliterature.org/living-daniel-wilmoth
http://www.microliterature.org/living-daniel-wilmoth#commentsSun, 15 Mar 2015 05:01:04 +0000http://www.microliterature.org/?p=979I was strapped to the feeding chair by my legs, my arms, and my head. The chair was one of six in a room with concrete walls and barred windows. The other five were empty. My eyes still watered from the insertion of the feeding tube through my nostril. I had quit eating their meals, and now they forced blue glop into my stomach twice per day. A medical technician and two guards stood together in my peripheral vision. I wore white socks, plastic sandals, and the orange jumpsuit given those prisoners at Guantanamo Bay deemed non-compliant. Several men in […]

]]>I was strapped to the feeding chair by my legs, my arms, and my head. The chair was one of six in a room with concrete walls and barred windows. The other five were empty. My eyes still watered from the insertion of the feeding tube through my nostril. I had quit eating their meals, and now they forced blue glop into my stomach twice per day. A medical technician and two guards stood together in my peripheral vision.

I wore white socks, plastic sandals, and the orange jumpsuit given those prisoners at Guantanamo Bay deemed non-compliant.

Several men in camouflage uniforms entered the room and were saluted by the guards and technician. When formalities had been concluded, they stood before my chair, discussing me in a language I did not understand. I could not infer rank from their insignia, but one of them was older, with white hair cut close to his head and a stomach that pressed against his shirt, and the others listened carefully to him. I had not seen him before, and I thought that perhaps he was a visiting leader.

“Please, sir,” I said to him in my language, “let me die.”

He spoke with a young translator I knew and then turned to me and answered in his language with a smile like a thorn. Many of them laughed, but the translator looked grim as he delivered the message.

“He said, ‘Do you call this living?’”

Daniel Wilmoth is a writer and economist living in urban Maryland. He enjoys finding the wild places hidden amid the asphalt and concrete.

]]>http://www.microliterature.org/living-daniel-wilmoth/feed0The Cup by Ken Poynerhttp://www.microliterature.org/cup-ken-poyner
http://www.microliterature.org/cup-ken-poyner#commentsSun, 08 Mar 2015 06:01:21 +0000http://www.microliterature.org/?p=972The child sleeps numbly, but she still rocks it randomly, its head rolling now and again out of the bowl of her arm and then attentively pulling itself back onto the pillow of its own chest. She brushes away flies from the child’s face, but lets them land on her own matted head covering, on her one bare shoulder, across the tent of her lap where her crossed legs form the stick struts that hold her dress flat across her. Venders have pushed her down to this end of the market. They do not want her and her cup; her […]

]]>The child sleeps numbly, but she still rocks it randomly, its head rolling now and again out of the bowl of her arm and then attentively pulling itself back onto the pillow of its own chest. She brushes away flies from the child’s face, but lets them land on her own matted head covering, on her one bare shoulder, across the tent of her lap where her crossed legs form the stick struts that hold her dress flat across her.

Venders have pushed her down to this end of the market. They do not want her and her cup; her thin, elastic frame and her cup; her sack of bones child and her cup; they do not want her cup competing for the stray coins that might buy a bootlegged DVD or an imported all-the-way-from-China shirt or last night’s left over dough dollops that the baker thought better about just before he was to throw them out. She does best outside of the mixed grain bakery and the cluttered meat scraps places. The people who shop there are almost as close to the street as she, and they will find not much to give, but a little, and a little from enough people will make enough. At the high end of the market, where whole cuts of meat and pants with zippers and shoes with laces are bought, she is simply something to walk around, and the shopkeepers push her down the street, down the street, down the street until she is at this end of the market, one of a dozen women without means and without the fat to do well in prostitution. As the last man to have her said, if a man can feel the floor through her dark spot of a body as he works his anger against her pinned mystery, then it is time to give up the sex trade and go for her bucket of sympathy more directly. None of these women have the means to not be bowed under a man who could afford to pay. A man of just small means could feel the floor or the wall or the table top through any of them, senselessly blunting himself.

Some hold out their hands, kiss the dangling hands of strangers who drop coins, though sometimes what the strangers drop are only buttons, bottle caps, stones. She stays as still as she can, unless she is rocking the child, and has the begging cup that once was a can of something – those earlier wealthy contents now forgotten – situated prominently where the strangers will see it, will have to walk around it when they walk around her, and where the older children cannot reach to steal it without discovering her unsuspected quickness.

When the street is too noisy with wailing and calls of recognition and carts and arguments over the price of second hand barbed wire or fiftieth-hand virginity, she will reach unseen into her clothing and pinch through the thin cloth the baby’s leather behind to get him to wail, to fling an arm over his head and let fly just one scream. She has not done the math, but she thinks this pushes her away from the school of other begging women as she competes for the customers’ alms. The other women beg of the passers by, lean pathetically forward and babble about lost husbands or sons; but the child screams, as though an Almighty equal, at God; and some people listen close enough that they will toss one coin or two into her chiming metal cylindrical bank.

By the end of the day there is a film at the bottom of the nicked cup: eight or ten coins, a bottle cap, two buttons, a plug from something mechanical. She puts the money in a purse that hangs inside her dress between the dry of her breasts, and threads the cup onto a cord that has been unseen about her neck all day. She wakes the child, who seems no different awake than asleep, and begins the two mile walk to her village, where home is a corner of someone else’s one room utility, a family bounty with a rain moat dug around it and thatch that is mixed with tar paper and stolen canvas scraps.

When, brittle bone weary and numb to the ankles, she arrives, she gives the child to his mother and says this one will not do any longer. Tomorrow it will be someone’s girl, a girl child with a little more life left in her, a bit of animation. She gives the mother one of her coins and begins to stagger to the river where she will place her feet in the water and sit peering at them as the coolness begins to work its way slowly from the toes to the arches to the instep, and her heels sing to the mud like she and the river bed were sisters, or brothers, or united like a hungry, anciently snarling pack of jackals.

Ken Poyner has lately been seen in “Analog”, “Café Irreal”, “Cream City Review”, “Black Denim”, and many other wonderful places. His latest book of short fiction, “Constant Animals’, is available from his web, www.kpoyner.com, and from amazon.com. He is married to Karen Poyner, one of the world’s premier power lifters, and holder of more than a dozen current world power lifting records. They are the animal parents of four rescue cats and assorted self-satisfied fish.

]]>http://www.microliterature.org/cup-ken-poyner/feed0Terrible Shoes by Katherine Gleasonhttp://www.microliterature.org/terrible-shoes-katherine-gleason
http://www.microliterature.org/terrible-shoes-katherine-gleason#commentsSun, 01 Mar 2015 06:01:35 +0000http://www.microliterature.org/?p=970On the Left Bank, surrounded by new classmates, white-footed terrier at my knee, I press close to the café table. The cold marble nips my palms. Foamy beverages arrive. I lean down, sip, recoil—too warm, too bitter. I try to catch the eye of the woman across from me, smile. She stirs her creamy drink, clanking spoon against china. She’s Scandinavian, may be Finnish or perhaps Norwegian. On my left, the girl from Berlin with blue-streaked hair, who blushes when called to conjugate, says in English that her feet hurt. “I look terrible in tennis shoes,” says the American, on […]

]]>On the Left Bank, surrounded by new classmates, white-footed terrier at my knee, I press close to the café table. The cold marble nips my palms. Foamy beverages arrive. I lean down, sip, recoil—too warm, too bitter. I try to catch the eye of the woman across from me, smile. She stirs her creamy drink, clanking spoon against china. She’s Scandinavian, may be Finnish or perhaps Norwegian.

On my left, the girl from Berlin with blue-streaked hair, who blushes when called to conjugate, says in English that her feet hurt.

“I look terrible in tennis shoes,” says the American, on my right. Her glance darts over the dog, skips down my thigh. She frowns at my offending trainers. My legs freeze. If she stares too hard, my shins will shatter. Across from me, the Scandinavian giggles. In halting French, she explains that today she bought new sandals. Under the table, her unpainted toenails and fuzzy legs stand firm as horses.

The American is wearing espadrilles. Espadrilles! The soles are not real rope, I am certain.

Just as the American is about to open her mouth, I remind her, my accent veering towards South London, that we are here to learn. We’re supposed to speak French.

Lips pressed together, nostrils pinched, she holds her breath, as if protecting herself from a foul vapor. Silence reigns. The stone of the table, which had seemed grand, elegant, bears pits and scars.

Pastries arrive, and I wish I had ordered one. I sip my tepid drink.

The American spoons whipped cream into her mouth. The dog stirs, stretches, settles back in my lap. I’m sure the American is about to comment that dogs are not allowed in New York restaurants but I am wrong.

“Tu me permets?” You allow me? she asks. She breaks off a bit of biscuit, holds it between fingertips. “Pour le chien?” For the dog?

I nod, and my terrier snaps up the offering. He licks his lips, raises his ears, cocks his head. Around the table we exclaim: How cute, like mine, like a baby, my little brother, he wants more! I laugh, stroke my boy’s silky ears, warm fur. The Berliner slips me a bite of profiterole—sweet fluff. We chat, lick spoons, pay the bill, and rise to leave, the Berliner and Scandinavian still comparing test results.

“Come,” the American says, “I’ll take you to my favorite place in all of Paris.” This time I don’t object to English. I scoop up my little dog and join her on the street.

Katherine Gleason’s most recent book is Anatomy of Steampunk: The Fashion of Victorian Futurism (Race Point Publishing, 2013). Her short stories have appeared in journals such as Cream City Review, Papirmasse, River Styx, and Southeast Review, and online at Camroc Press Review, Mississippi Review online, and Monkeybicyle online.

]]>http://www.microliterature.org/terrible-shoes-katherine-gleason/feed0Two Pairs of Pants by Ron Singerhttp://www.microliterature.org/two-pairs-pants-ron-singer
http://www.microliterature.org/two-pairs-pants-ron-singer#commentsSun, 22 Feb 2015 06:01:24 +0000http://www.microliterature.org/?p=9751976: We came, hurly-burly, from Maine to Chicago that hot summer, for my dissertation defense. Staying at the studio of my wife’s painter-friend, I hung my best pants (black Lee Riders) on an easel, and went to bed. Early the next morning, I reached for the pants: they were about five sizes too small. “Liz, Liz, what happened to my pants! Did you wash them or something?” Since the defense was at nine, there was no time to buy a new pair. Defend a dissertation in shorts? It turned out our friend had come in late and hung her pants, […]

We came, hurly-burly, from Maine to Chicago that hot summer, for my dissertation defense. Staying at the studio of my wife’s painter-friend, I hung my best pants (black Lee Riders) on an easel, and went to bed. Early the next morning, I reached for the pants: they were about five sizes too small. “Liz, Liz, what happened to my pants! Did you wash them or something?” Since the defense was at nine, there was no time to buy a new pair. Defend a dissertation in shorts? It turned out our friend had come in late and hung her pants, identical but smaller, over mine. (I passed.)

Moral: When you have something important to do, stay out of your wife’s friend’s pants.

2012:

In a New York hospital, with almost-kidney failure, I shared a room with an orthodox rabbi suffering from chronic, multiple complaints. As (Tuesday) evening fell, his wife reluctantly left for the five-hour bus ride back up to Monsey: she did not drive. “Don’t forget my pants,” he reminded her. Presumably, they left as few things as possible in the hospital room. The next day, ten bus hours and a short night’s rest later, she was back. The red tape for his discharge took hours. Finally cleared, and anxious to leave, he snatched the pants from the shopping bag in which she had brought them. They were beautiful, dark blue, possibly made of silk. “Oh, no!” he cried in horror. “You brought my Shabbos pants!” I can’t remember the resolution. Did he wear the Shabbos pants, desecrating them? Or did she hurry out to buy him another pair?

Moral: “Strait is the gate, and narrow is the way.”

Satire by Ron Singer (www.ronsinger.net) has appeared in numerous venues. He has published seven books in varied genres: A Voice for My Grandmother, The Second Kingdom, The Rented Pet, Look to Mountains, Look to Sea, From a Small Fish in the Floating World, Geistmann, and The Parents We Deserve. In 2010 and 2011, Singer traveled to six African countries for Uhuru Revisited: Interviews with Pro-Democracy Leaders (forthcoming).

]]>http://www.microliterature.org/two-pairs-pants-ron-singer/feed0Stone Against Bronze by Louis Abbeyhttp://www.microliterature.org/stone-bronze-louis-abbey
http://www.microliterature.org/stone-bronze-louis-abbey#commentsSun, 15 Feb 2015 06:01:03 +0000http://www.microliterature.org/?p=940Early on a chilly, gray morning in November 1941, Henry Miller, bored from his drive across the country, stopped for breakfast at Eudora Welty’s home in Jackson, Mississippi. Knowing him only from reputation, Miss Welty was at wits end. What will we do, she thought. This will be like diving into cold water. That same morning, near the center of town, Warden Love said breakfast grace at the Mississippi State Lunatic Asylum. After the meal, he announced that the Asylum would be moving that day to the new facility across the Pearl River. A shiny-faced man jumped up cheering and […]

]]>Early on a chilly, gray morning in November 1941, Henry Miller, bored from his drive across the country, stopped for breakfast at Eudora Welty’s home in Jackson, Mississippi.

Knowing him only from reputation, Miss Welty was at wits end. What will we do, she thought. This will be like diving into cold water.

That same morning, near the center of town, Warden Love said breakfast grace at the Mississippi State Lunatic Asylum. After the meal, he announced that the Asylum would be moving that day to the new facility across the Pearl River. A shiny-faced man jumped up cheering and danced around a table where another had just vomited his breakfast. Several inmates rose simultaneously and began speaking while others hid under a table. The Warden ignored these outbursts.

“Divide the inmates into groups of two,” Warden Love explained to his assistants. “Each pair will pick up a bed and carry it over the bridge to the new facility on the other side of the river.” Then he nodded to the staff who circulated from table to table matching up the inmates.

Word spread quickly and many Jackson residents turned out to watch the spectacle.

“Put your glass down and get your coat, Mr. Miller. We are going to see a show.”

At eleven o’clock, a line of old men in ragged overcoats against the chill marched their beds down the street and onto the bridge. People pinched their noses against a thick urine-tainted wind.

A woman standing beside Welty and Miller asked, “How can Warden Love suffer crazy old men to such a task in weather like this?”

Miss Welty smiled uncomfortably. Miller burped.

At mid span in the bridge, the lead pair of inmates dropped their bed. One man picked up a rock from the road and began to beat it against the bronze handrail — stone against bronze, stone against bronze. Others followed suit. Stone against bronze, stone against bronze grew louder and swelled from the bridge over the crowd and out across the marsh.

The beating bronze voice caught the attention of an armed farm boy counting shells in a duck blind north of the bridge. He readied his shotgun and looked up as a cloud of pigeons dropped from the bridge and blew upstream. Miss Welty watched that cloud and a spearhead of ducks that rose out of the brown marsh grass and flew south.

“Isn’t this something, Mr. Miller?”

Miller, head dulled from rum and creosote, nodded like a silent orange on a tree.

Lukewarm, Miss Welty thought.

The inmates continued — stone against bronze, stone against bronze. The ducks flew high out of range. The pigeon cloud dissipated

“It isn’t often,” Miss Welty said, “that Jackson has so much to offer.”

Louis Abbey is a retired Professor from VCU in Richmond, VA. He has an MFA in Creative Writing and has published poetry and fiction in Indiana Review, The MacGuffin, Hayden’s Ferry Review, among others. He has published online in Grey Sparrow and Toasted Cheese. He currently lives and writes in Revere, MA.

]]>http://www.microliterature.org/stone-bronze-louis-abbey/feed0Birds, Bees, and Girls in Trees by B. E. Smithhttp://www.microliterature.org/birds-bees-girls-trees-b-e-smith
http://www.microliterature.org/birds-bees-girls-trees-b-e-smith#commentsSun, 08 Feb 2015 06:18:26 +0000http://www.microliterature.org/?p=938A friend read my course load for spring semester, shaking his head at one of the class titles. “Women in Literature?” he asked. “You’ll never get laid in that class.” I had learned to step away from him when I saw his eyes wander from our conversation to women walking along the quadrangle. He stood agog but my gender made me feel as culpable as the passing women deemed me complicit. I had purchased my books, read the course outline, and looked forward to the poems and stories of female authors I would be reading. Waiting in the hall for […]

]]>A friend read my course load for spring semester, shaking his head at one of the class titles. “Women in Literature?” he asked. “You’ll never get laid in that class.” I had learned to step away from him when I saw his eyes wander from our conversation to women walking along the quadrangle. He stood agog but my gender made me feel as culpable as the passing women deemed me complicit.

I had purchased my books, read the course outline, and looked forward to the poems and stories of female authors I would be reading. Waiting in the hall for class to begin one day, a female classmate with short brunette hair shouldered her book bag and mentioned the reading assignment. She asked if I wasn’t getting a little tired of stories about teenage menstruation. I realized that I was not alone. In fact, when I suggested the “Lab Fee” was probably for the cost of personal examination mirrors, she laughed and said, “Yeah, I thought I was taking a literature course, too.”

As one young man among thirty women and their professor, I would offer an opinion in her class and be ignored. Once the pronoun attached to my words had changed, my femaile peers were willing to discuss my ideas. They were free to plagiarize me, repeating what I said verbatim, as if I hadn’t just uttered those very words. Until they needed another talking point, I drifted.

Having moved a thousand miles away from home years ago, I found myself corresponding with a friend who was working as a nanny some fifteen hundred miles away near the Gulf Coast. She was blond, heavy-chested, and wending her way through life with her body. With me, though, it had been Chinese takeout and fortune cookies that read: Sorry, I can’t; I’m saving myself for marriage. Regardless, we remained friends as life lead us in different directions.

On a night when the Santa Anna winds were scorching my Indian summer, she called me. Hearing a friendly female voice was comforting, but I hadn’t given her my telephone number. The next call from Houston was a hundred percent hot with frightening humidity. Her voice was panicked and pleading for help. Apparently she had a boyfriend, and he was beating her again. She couldn’t take any more. “He’s black and he’s gonna kill me,” she cried. “But I don’t have enough money to leave, Robert!”

“You’ve got to get out of there!” I said. I couldn’t bear knowing my friend was in pain. So I wired her a thousand dollars that night and told her to stay in a hotel by the airport.

Her boyfriend calmed down for a week, until she needed more money, I would learn. She had taken me for another grand before I caught on to her scam. I imagined them laughing at me from their deadbeat apartment, smoking their crack pipe and convinced they could fleece me a third time.

Class ended upon a student’s recitation of a short story. After which the brunette in the desk across the aisle from me muttered in discontent, “Did anyone else see anything wrong with an adolescent girl trying to escape her period by climbing a cherry tree?”

B. E. Smith is a freelance writer from Utah. In addition to essay and article publications, his stories and poems have appeared in anthologies and magazines such as Gutter Eloquence, Zygote in My Coffee, The Legendary, Static Movement, the delinquent, and in the current issue of The Binnacle. He lives in Salt Lake City and is writing a memoir.

]]>http://www.microliterature.org/birds-bees-girls-trees-b-e-smith/feed0Ocean View by Lori Schaferhttp://www.microliterature.org/ocean-view-lori-schafer
http://www.microliterature.org/ocean-view-lori-schafer#commentsSun, 01 Feb 2015 06:11:23 +0000http://www.microliterature.org/?p=929She rocks, the antiquated chair creaking quietly against the worn wood of the porch. The sun blazes high overhead and she pauses; bends to steal a sip of lemonade, pink from the pitcher on the table beside her. “So what do you think, Ma?” He nudges her back into consciousness, awareness of his presence. She reflects, scrutinizing her son, seated still at her feet, nearly aged himself now: back bent, head bald, beard white. Just like his father, God rest his soul. “I always wanted to live by the ocean,” she replies, turning away from him to face it again: […]

]]>She rocks, the antiquated chair creaking quietly against the worn wood of the porch. The sun blazes high overhead and she pauses; bends to steal a sip of lemonade, pink from the pitcher on the table beside her.

“So what do you think, Ma?” He nudges her back into consciousness, awareness of his presence.

She reflects, scrutinizing her son, seated still at her feet, nearly aged himself now: back bent, head bald, beard white. Just like his father, God rest his soul.

“I always wanted to live by the ocean,” she replies, turning away from him to face it again: the calm azure horizon, the warm gentle breakers foaming white off the shore.

“I know you did,” he says, turning, too. Seabirds scuttle back and forth across the muddy beach, forcing their beaks into the saturated earth when the waves retreat; retreating themselves when the wet wash returns.

She continues to rock, clasps her hands tight in her lap as she watches, thinking sadly of Herbert, the view they might have shared had he only lived longer.

“It’s lovely,” she admits at last. “But I don’t like having so many new people in town.”

Herbert Jr. leans back on his callused palms; extends his lanky legs down over the wide wooden steps, the familiar front stoop of his long-ago youth.

“They had to go somewhere,” he reminds her gently.

“I suppose,” she concedes. “But I do hope they’ll go home soon.”

He peers worriedly into the gray fog of his mother’s eyes. “They can’t go home, Ma. Remember I told you? Their houses are underwater now.”

“Still?” she inquires, astonished. “But it’s been so long.”

He swallows. “Don’t you remember, Ma? I told you what happened, with the sea level and all…”

“Laziness, pure laziness!” she sputters, an old fire rekindling itself in her cool clouded eyes. “In my day we knew how to work, how to rebuild after a catastrophe. Why, when your father came back from the war…”

He allows her to ramble while he again seeks the sea; descries the encampment at the foot of the dunes to the north, the shanty-town set upon the cliff to the south. For once he is grateful that her sight has grown dim.

“…There wasn’t a country in the world that could match us for productivity! We were proud to be Americans, proud to belong to these fifty states!”

“Forty-seven,” Herbert sighs without thinking.

She ceases rocking, cold choler in her countenance. “I’m not senile, Herbert. You think I don’t know how many states there are?’

“Sorry, Ma,” he answers contritely.

She sips her lemonade sourly. “You should be,” she agrees. “I suppose next you’ll be telling me it isn’t awfully warm for November?”

“No, Ma. You’re absolutely right; it is awfully warm for November.”

She resumes her rocking, a bit more fiercely; squints past her son at the calm azure coast, the light tranquil breakers, the warm gentle waves lapping ever nearer, ever closer to the old family home.

Lori Schafer’s flash fiction, short stories, and essays have appeared in numerous print and online publications, and she is currently at work on her third novel. Her memoir, On Hearing of My Mother’s Death Six Years After It Happened: A Daughter’s Memoir of Mental Illness is being released in October 2014. You can find out more about Lori and her forthcoming projects by visiting her website at http://lorilschafer.blogspot.com/.

]]>http://www.microliterature.org/ocean-view-lori-schafer/feed0Shelter by Gwendolyn Joyce Mintzhttp://www.microliterature.org/shelter-gwendolyn-joyce-mintz
http://www.microliterature.org/shelter-gwendolyn-joyce-mintz#commentsSun, 25 Jan 2015 06:01:15 +0000http://www.microliterature.org/?p=967Estelle was stabbed 26 times. That’s why her death made the front page though it wasn’t the headline story. Peggy, the shelter manager, called before the morning paper was delivered with instructions to keep it from the women. “That’s not how they should find out,” she’d said. After breakfast, the children were sent out to play. The women were gathered into the dayroom. I took a place at the back. Peggy was joined by the crisis counselors. In a low tone, she announced that Estelle had been killed in the night before. Gasps across the room. Peggy quieted the group. […]

]]>Estelle was stabbed 26 times. That’s why her death made the front page though it wasn’t the headline story. Peggy, the shelter manager, called before the morning paper was delivered with instructions to keep it from the women.

“That’s not how they should find out,” she’d said.

After breakfast, the children were sent out to play. The women were gathered into the dayroom.

I took a place at the back. Peggy was joined by the crisis counselors. In a low tone, she announced that Estelle had been killed in the night before.

Gasps across the room.

Peggy quieted the group. “We will not dishonor Estelle by giving into fear,” she said. “You’re safe here; we remain shelter for you.”

The counselors’ services were offered to anyone wanting to talk.

The women trickled from the room.

Peggy, on her way out, gave me a hug, whispered in my ear. She knew I’d developed a relationship with Estelle.

“You don’t judge, you don’t advise, you just listen,” the counselors had told us at the volunteer training.

As I got to know Estelle, I hoped that she would not be like my mother or many of the other women who would always make use of the revolving door policy.

She talked to the counselors. She, by choice, had no children. She’d gone to a community college.

“It was hard, though,” she’d told me. “If I had male teachers, he’d sometimes show up during class.”

Still she was able to get a certificate in some program. It gave her the courage to dream of going further: an associate’s, a bachelor’s. “In education,” she confessed. “Can you imagine me a teacher?”

I could.

Estelle had the key—she just couldn’t find the right door.

“I wish she’d sought us out,” Peggy had said to me.

I don’t know if the security cameras are viewed every day. I think only if there’s an incident is the film pulled. But if Peggy ever views last evening’s recording, she’ll know that Estelle had come.

“We don’t have any beds available,” I’d told her over the intercom. We stood on either side of the glass entrance door. It was a lie, but she didn’t question why I didn’t offer her a sleeping bag or the sofa/bed in the dayroom or to take petty cash and put her up in a motel.

I thought from the corner she’d again found herself in, she might see the other options available. If she couldn’t come back here, maybe she’d understand she had power to create a place — grow from there.

I didn’t think she’d go back to him.

“You’ll have to practice patience,” we were also told. A counselor said it took ten to twelve times before a woman would leave her for good.

In the seven months I’d been here, Estelle had come eleven times.

I was going to be at the shelter all night; I would’ve given her the keys to my place if she’d only asked.

Why didn’t she just ask?

Gwendolyn Joyce Mintz is a writer and photographer. Her work has appeared in various online and print journals. She infrequently blogs about her creative life at http://wwwonewriter.blogspot.com.